


This Takes the Cake

by Gelsey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bakery and Coffee Shop, Banter, Best Friends, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelsey/pseuds/Gelsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millicent meets someone unexpected at her bakery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Takes the Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katmarajade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katmarajade/gifts).



He came into the bakery every morning at precisely a quarter past seven. Millicent could set a clock by the man ever since he’d moved to the neighborhood six months ago (not that she noticed such things). After all, Millicent wasn’t paid to work the counter. She baked the goods that went into the display cases. 

Well, she and Fabian made the baked goods. She couldn’t deny that the other man contributed. Counter duty went to Sharon and Theo. Mostly Theo. 

Theo, who conveniently kept calling her out of the back every morning at ten past seven. 

She really hated Theo sometimes. 

“No, you don’t,” he murmured after the bell rang behind the regular customer. The large, squarely built man always left at half past seven, having eaten his pastry.

“Don’t what?” she asked archly.

“Hate me.” His voice was insufferably smug, as was that smirk on his pretty lips.

“I didn’t say anything,” she said hotly, arms crossing over her ample bosom.

“You didn’t have to, love. I know exactly what you’re thinking. About me and about him.” Theo grinned cheekily at her, kissed her jaw, and laughed as she huffed and stalked into the back to tend to her pastries, alone. Where he couldn’t see that her cheeks turned bright red. 

“You should talk to him, you know! Instead of hiding behind me.”

“Theodore Nott, shut your face. There is no world in which I could manage to hide behind you.” Her voice was caustic enough to melt flesh, but Theo didn’t flinch. He was inured to her abrasiveness by now.

“True, I’m not nearly as luscious as you,” he said meditatively. “More’s the pity. If I were, then maybe Blaise would love me like he loves you.” 

When she heard his large, gusty sigh, she had to turn around. Her hands settled onto her generous hips. “You know, if you actually talked to Blaise instead of running off every time he opens his mouth, maybe you two would actually stop dancing around each other. One shag and you turn into an utter idiot.”

Instead of looking contrite, he smirked at her again. “You know, if you actually talked to him instead of running off every time he opens his mouth,” he parroted back at her.

She threw a handful of flour at him, glaring poisonously. He retreated to front again, laughing, and didn’t even bother to dust the flour off his front.

“I hate you!” she yelled after him. She still didn’t mean it. 

Okay, maybe she meant it a little bit. But he had a point.

If she never asked for the guy’s name, nothing would ever happen.

~o0o~

Theo abandoned her ruthlessly at ten past seven the next morning. He was a cruel and horrible best mate. She really did hate his guts. She also loved him terribly for it, but she would have to punish him for it first.

That would come after Mister Built-Like-a-Brick-House left, of course. Mustn’t have witnesses to attempted murder, after all. Or would it merely be assault and battery?

Right on time, in he came. Blond hair buzzed short, shoulders straining his jacket. Oh, sure, he was starting to go soft in the middle, but she wasn’t about to complain. It was his shoulders and arms she swooned over every time he came in the store. 

Now that he was here, though, Millicent had no idea what to say to him. Nothing. Absolutely nada. And unhelpfully, he didn’t speak, only pointed at the usually pastry and coffee combo he always got, every single morning. 

She really shouldn’t know his order, but she was already reaching for it when he pointed.

The entire transaction nearly happened in complete silence, but as she rung him up, he finally spoke, rumbling, “Shorthanded today?” 

“You could say that. Someone is going to be short a hand, anyway,” she said, leveling a glare back over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

“Ah.”

Millicent realized she was probably being a tad too acerbic, and she sighed. “My best mate thinks he’s doing me a favor,” she said, turning back around and meeting his eyes. There were, she was pleased to note, laugh lines at the corners. 

“Best mate, huh? Helpful lot, those.” His deep voice held a note of wryness told her he commiserated completely. But also… was he fishing to see if there was more there? It had been so long since Millicent really flirted with anyone that she didn’t know. “What favor does he think he’s doing?”

Millicent busied herself with the register. It carried both pounds and galleons. The bakery served both Muggles and magical folks – one of the first to do so in the mixed village of Godric’s Hollow. “Getting me to talk to you,” she managed to say without meeting his eye. “I’m supposed to find out your name, or the prick is going to make me close and open for a week.”

Given she was even partners with Theo, that wasn’t necessarily something he could do to her, but she was sure he’d do his damnedest to try.

“Me? And why would you have to find that out?” She could tell he was leaning against the counter now. She could see his forearm right in front of her. Scarred knuckles, from fighting. But there were other scars on his hands, from hard work. She wondered what he did for a living.

She huffed quietly and looked up at him, arms crossing over her chest again in a defensive posture. “Because I’ve been wondering about it for months and haven’t done a thing about it,” she said in her typical blunt manner. Much too blunt to be a good Slytherin, but somehow she persevered. 

Now it was his turn to be speechless and look away. “Umm.”

She swore she heard snickering from behind the kitchen door. Theo was going to die. She was just going to have to suffer the ordeal of finding a new best mate after he was dead. That was all there was to it.

Millicent made his change and handed it over, along with a cup of coffee and the pastry bag. She truly thought this was going to be the end of it, and he’d probably stop coming by, and she’d never see him or those lovely broad shoulders again. When he stepped away from her, she resigned herself to the fact.

But then he spoke. “Dudley. I’m Dudley Dursley.”

“Nice to meet you, Dudley, I’m Millicent Bulstrode. And the bastard snickering in the kitchen who normally serves your food is Theodore Nott, but please feel free to knock him on his arse next time he speaks to you.” Might as well introduce him now. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dudley said. “But I hope I’ll see you instead of him tomorrow, Millicent. It was good to meet you.”

~o0o~

She recognized the name only after Harry dropped into the shop. Oh, she’d known the name Dursley was vaguely familiar, but she hadn’t worried much about placing it. Not even after she’d gone on several dates with the man. So long as he wasn’t a serial killer or a Death Eater (the latter was ruled out when she figured out for certain he was a Muggle), Millicent was happy enough. And he treated her like a princess. Flowers, dinner, the works, and he’d only kissed her good night the first several dates, something that had both pleased and disappointed her at the time. She’d been the one to invite him in first.

“Auror Potter, what a surprise,” she heard Theo say from up front. “What can we do for you?”

“A box of your pastries and a word with your baker,” the man said easily.

Theo stuck his head into the back, raised his eyebrows at Millicent, and promptly hollered for Fabian.

The younger baker blinked and started to the front, but there was a loud sigh. “The other baker, Nott.”

Well, it was good to know that Theo aggravated more than her, Millicent thought as she brushed her hands off on her apron and pushed past the slim Slytherin. “What do you want, Potter? I’ve buns in the oven, and I don’t want them to burn,” she said brusquely. 

His eyes automatically dropped to her belly, and his mouth opened to say Merlin knew what as he flushed. She smirked at him. “No, Potter, literal buns. What do you want? Be quick about it.” She had successfully thrown him off balance, though, no mean feat from what she heard. She’d take pride in that.

“I hear you’re going out with my cousin Dudley.” 

Well, two could play the blunt game. So that was where she’d heard the name before – Dudley was Harry Potter’s Muggle cousin. There’d been blurbs in the Potter biographies that went wild after the war. 

“Yeah, so?” she said, face schooled to blandness. No use giving him a reaction he could use. She might be blunt, but she could not-emote like a champ.

“So. He’s a Muggle, you know that, right?”

She raised an eyebrow. “It _is_ a bit obvious, Potter. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t miss that.”

“And you’re a witch.” And a Slytherin. She heard the subtext.

“I’m a half-blood, Potter, in case you missed the memo.” From the expression on his face, he actually probably had missed it. “Yeah, us Slytherins aren’t all purebloods. And if you haven’t noticed, we successfully run a shop that caters to both sides without breaking the Statute, so we’re not doing half bad.”

Potter looked taken aback by her attitude, which, while not quite out of line, was definitely bordering on rude. She was rather sure that very few people spoke to him that way these days.

“He has a kid, you know,” Potter said, just as bluntly as she would have. She could respect that.

“Good Merlin, Potter, of course I know!” she said, tossing her hands in the air. “I’ve gone out with the man! What do you think we talk about? The price of rice in China? One of the first things he told me was about Charlotte. He’s insanely proud of her and rightly so. And he knows about Atticus, so what else are you going to use to try to keep me from dating your cousin?”

He stared at her, and Theo started to chuckle. Millicent smacked her friend across the chest, leaving a floury handprint. Atticus was actually Theodore’s son, not hers – she was simply his godmother. But she had helped care for the boy since the day his mother left, and anyone she became involved with would have to live with that. 

Before Potter could speak again, the bell above the door rang again, and everyone turned as one to look at the customer. It was Dudley. Completely unexpected but also completely welcome at this moment, in her mind. “Harry, what are you doing here?”

Now Potter definitely looked like a deer in the wand-light. “Ah…”

“He’s interrogating me about my intentions with you,” Millicent told him with a smile that was just a bit too sweet. 

“Is he? God, Harry, I told you to leave this alone. I know perfectly well she’s a witch. I’d have to be dumber than a box of rocks to miss the signs of it after all the time I’ve spent in your home. Besides, she told me after I told her about Lottie’s accidental magic.” He looked over at Millicent. “Though just what are your intentions, Millicent? You do have them, don’t you?”

His eyes might be dancing a little, but there was an underlying seriousness that had her beckoning to him with the crook of a finger. He actually had to lean down to her. She loved it because it made her feel small, just like his large hands splayed on her back as he guided her into a restaurant did. She kissed him then, like she had on her doorstep the other night – hot and thoroughly, tongue pushing into his mouth to possess it briefly. “My intentions are entirely too naughty to tell the poor, prudish Auror,” she said quietly, meeting his eyes and grinning, knowing that they had been overheard. Potter made a sound of protest, at least. Theo simply snickered. “And entirely too personal for him as well, since I’m supposed to meet your daughter again tomorrow.” 

Her broad baker’s hand was covered with his larger one as she turned to look at Potter again. “Let me put it simply, Potter. I appreciate your concern for his sake, but butt out. My romance is none of your business.”

The Auror looked completely flummoxed by the display and the almost polite drawing of boundaries. Or perhaps it was because she made it clear that she was completely serious about the man in front of her. She wasn’t certain which. 

Her hand was raised, a kiss placed on its back before Dudley laced their fingers together. “Yes, Harry. I appreciate your concern, but we’re doing just fine. I’ll let you know when you should come over for a double date with Ginny. Or maybe when you should take Lottie for the night.” His eyes stayed on Millicent’s, not giving his cousin a second glance. 

Harry Potter huffed, tossed his hands up in the air, and left.

“Poor bloke forgot his pastry in the rush,” Theo said in an oh so bland and innocent tone. “I wonder what distracted him so terribly. Maybe I should go give it to him.”

“Oh, Theo,” the couple said at the same time with the same amount of exasperation.

Theo edged up to her, nudged her arm to draw her attention. “Hey, Mils, don’t forget your buns in the oven,” he said in a stage whisper.

Dudley froze, eyes going wide as he looked at her. Theo danced away from her before she could smack him. 

“Theodore Nott! I’m getting you for that one!” she yelled after him. She really did hate him, she thought as she hastened to reassure Dudley that the buns were literal. Worst best mate ever.

**Author's Note:**

> For my darling Katy, whose work always thrills me. <3
> 
> Thanks to theimpossiblegl for the beta; all mistakes left are mine.
> 
> Written for rarepair wishlist.


End file.
